Educational technology is not shortening student attention span. Every generation has made the claim that the next generation has no attention span and it is usually blamed on the latest technology. Parents raising kids in the 1950's may have said kids watch too much television and that television rots their brains. Parents in the 80's were probably the first to claims that video games, Atarti for example, were rotting kids' brains. Now that we are teaching kids, and they have their own new technology, we say they are rotting their brains with cell phones and Ipods and super video game systems. Technology is merely a part of our evolutionary tract. If attention spans are shorter, its because we don't need them to be that long anymore.
This is a tough one for me, because I agree with the other side of the argument.
What ideas do you guys have for incorporating info for this page? ~Stancil
1) Technology should not be solely used for classroom activities, but can add diversity to learning. This allows teachers to move away from the traditional lectures that notoriously kill attention span. "As the lecture proceeded attention spans became shorter and often fell to three or four minutes towards the end of a standard lecture." ~ Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish from "The Change-up in Lectures" (article is the ntlf.com one below).
2) Children's brains might be changing so they can multitask better than their elders.
"Scores on intelligence sts have been steadily rising since the 1940s, says University of Utah neuro-psychologist Sam Goldstein. The tests measure a child's ability to shift and divide attention, but they also cover problem-solving and comprehension skills. "They're smarter." ~ excerpt from University of Utah neuropsychologist Sam Goldstein in USA TODAY article by Marilyn Elias (link is below)
3) The problem is not that technology is decreasing attention spans, but that schools and parents are not teaching media literacy.
"We have so little good research on children and media, but what we have is concerning," Rich says. There are few "media literacy" programs in schools to help children sort out advertising claims and understand how media can affect them, Rich says."
~excerpt from Michael Rich, a Harvard pediatrician and director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston in USA TODAY article by Marilyn Elias (link is below).
Is Educational Technology shortening our attention span?
Maybe for some people such as the person I read about.......A writer that use to dive deep into novels and research at the library but now spends little time and effort researching on a computer to find a plethora of knowledge. For me, one who already has a short attention span, it has helped me to think more creatively by coming up with various search words to find what I am looking for. I loved diving into novels, letting my mind create a picture of what I was reading, escaping from the world and jumping into a world of imagination. I must believe that the technology we use to make our lives easier is a huge benefit and we should conform or adapt with the times....not meaning we need to give up our way of escaping by diving for days at a time into a great book. I think we just need to learn to manage our lives better as we grow with age and technology. Knowing how to do this can help us to be better educators as we can help improve our students lives in this area.
What is education and how is it changing?
To say that educational technology is shortening our attention spans is to also say that a 50 minute lecture will increase a student's attention span. We are teaching our students to be able to operate and lead not today, but 5,10, even 15 years from now. To do this we must teach them the skills that we see the world turning to and putting emphasis on. One of those skills is multitasking. It has not been proven that the ability to multitask decreases attention span. I would like to propose that the ability to multitask actually makes a person a better thinker. I think of a student and education like a plant. If we grow a plant surrounded with limited nutrients that take a long time to decompose and be absorbed by the plant, the plant will grow slowly and be weak. If we grow a plant with a multitude of nutrients (some nutrients that the plant will never need but is still available) that are quickly digestible the plant will grow quickly and will flourish. Likewise if we teach our students using only a limited number of books and lectures they will not get the viewpoints that we want them to have. Part of the operational stage according to Piaget involves a person holding multiple viewpoints and facts in their head at the same time, retrieving them quickly, and constructing new knowledge from these viewpoints and facts. I believe that Piaget would love the internet. He would embrace the multiple stimulating facts and the active learning that goes with them.
Conclusion:
There are pros and cons to both sides of this issue. We can all agree that Educational Technology can have positive and negative effects on 21st century learners. Many critics who say that the constant bombardment of technology is shortenting attention spans have probably not seen technology used properly in the classroom. As we move from education as the memorization of facts to education as the construction of knowledge we can see that technology and web 2.0 are powerful tools if used appropriatly. We need to show students how to use technology in a useful constructive manner. This is one of the most pressing needs in educational reform today. The most important thing we as educators need to remember when including technology is that we have clear instructional goals and we balance our teaching modes.
This is a tough one for me, because I agree with the other side of the argument.
What ideas do you guys have for incorporating info for this page? ~Stancil
1) Technology should not be solely used for classroom activities, but can add diversity to learning. This allows teachers to move away from the traditional lectures that notoriously kill attention span. "As the lecture proceeded attention spans became shorter and often fell to three or four minutes towards the end of a standard lecture." ~ Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish from "The Change-up in Lectures" (article is the ntlf.com one below).
2) Children's brains might be changing so they can multitask better than their elders.
"Scores on intelligence sts have been steadily rising since the 1940s, says University of Utah neuro-psychologist Sam Goldstein. The tests measure a child's ability to shift and divide attention, but they also cover problem-solving and comprehension skills. "They're smarter." ~ excerpt from University of Utah neuropsychologist Sam Goldstein in USA TODAY article by Marilyn Elias (link is below)
3) The problem is not that technology is decreasing attention spans, but that schools and parents are not teaching media literacy.
"We have so little good research on children and media, but what we have is concerning," Rich says. There are few "media literacy" programs in schools to help children sort out advertising claims and understand how media can affect them, Rich says."
~excerpt from Michael Rich, a Harvard pediatrician and director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston in USA TODAY article by Marilyn Elias (link is below).
Is Educational Technology shortening our attention span?
Maybe for some people such as the person I read about.......A writer that use to dive deep into novels and research at the library but now spends little time and effort researching on a computer to find a plethora of knowledge. For me, one who already has a short attention span, it has helped me to think more creatively by coming up with various search words to find what I am looking for. I loved diving into novels, letting my mind create a picture of what I was reading, escaping from the world and jumping into a world of imagination. I must believe that the technology we use to make our lives easier is a huge benefit and we should conform or adapt with the times....not meaning we need to give up our way of escaping by diving for days at a time into a great book. I think we just need to learn to manage our lives better as we grow with age and technology. Knowing how to do this can help us to be better educators as we can help improve our students lives in this area.
What is education and how is it changing?
To say that educational technology is shortening our attention spans is to also say that a 50 minute lecture will increase a student's attention span. We are teaching our students to be able to operate and lead not today, but 5,10, even 15 years from now. To do this we must teach them the skills that we see the world turning to and putting emphasis on. One of those skills is multitasking. It has not been proven that the ability to multitask decreases attention span. I would like to propose that the ability to multitask actually makes a person a better thinker. I think of a student and education like a plant. If we grow a plant surrounded with limited nutrients that take a long time to decompose and be absorbed by the plant, the plant will grow slowly and be weak. If we grow a plant with a multitude of nutrients (some nutrients that the plant will never need but is still available) that are quickly digestible the plant will grow quickly and will flourish. Likewise if we teach our students using only a limited number of books and lectures they will not get the viewpoints that we want them to have. Part of the operational stage according to Piaget involves a person holding multiple viewpoints and facts in their head at the same time, retrieving them quickly, and constructing new knowledge from these viewpoints and facts. I believe that Piaget would love the internet. He would embrace the multiple stimulating facts and the active learning that goes with them.
Links to relevant sites and articles:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128092341.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7564152.stm
http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9601/article1.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-03-30-kids-attention_x.htm
Time: How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-google-shortening-attention-spans.html (good read)
Conclusion:
There are pros and cons to both sides of this issue. We can all agree that Educational Technology can have positive and negative effects on 21st century learners. Many critics who say that the constant bombardment of technology is shortenting attention spans have probably not seen technology used properly in the classroom. As we move from education as the memorization of facts to education as the construction of knowledge we can see that technology and web 2.0 are powerful tools if used appropriatly. We need to show students how to use technology in a useful constructive manner. This is one of the most pressing needs in educational reform today. The most important thing we as educators need to remember when including technology is that we have clear instructional goals and we balance our teaching modes.